Learning by heart

Graduate education course explores creative learning

Dr. Elizabeth Yeoman and John Hoben.

By Heidi Wicks

Dr. Elizabeth Yeoman of Memorial’s Faculty of Education wants
to give students an opportunity to do something creative.

“Part of my thinking is that a lot of qualitative research is
disseminated in ways that are very dry,” Dr. Yeoman said of
the graduate course she developed – Education 6394:
Biographical Exploration of Teaching and Learning. “I think
that there’s an awful lot of good research and good,
important information that is not being read. I’m also
interested in ways of reporting on research that are more creative,
that have more human interest, and so on.”

The class starts out by listening to radio documentaries,
multimedia presentations, short films and such, which results in
course assignments producing works of fiction, art and short films
– all of which pack a punch in their presentation of research
and educational theory. Dr. Yeoman said students from varying
creative backgrounds are interested in the course.

“Some students take this course because they are creative and
welcome an opportunity to use their gifts as part of their
master’s work. Others have never done anything creative at
all but are willing to take that risk. And as long as they have
that willingness, I accept them in the course,” she
explained.

Although Dr. Yeoman believes there are more than eight, she
believes logical-mathematical and linguistic are the two
intelligences schools seem to use the most.

“The idea is that we should teach to all intelligences, and
not just those two. But the question is, how do we do that?”
she said, adding that her course hopes to tap into the other
intelligences.

Faculty of Education PhD candidate John Hoben was a student in Dr.
Yeoman’s course four years ago, and has since taught the
course himself. Mr. Hoben reiterated that there is a misconception
that being creative is a cop-out, or easy way of doing
something.

“We tend to think of creative work as being in contrast to
academic work, and some of the things we try to do is to bridge
that gap. We tend to have writing communities and creative
communities, and then we have academic communities. It’s a
shame because I think both communities can learn from each other. I
think there were a lot of talents that both communities had, that
they weren’t utilizing. This course gives the space where you
can be creative and have freedom, but also work hard.”

Like other graduate courses in the Faculty of Education, the course
also provides an opportunity for personal reflection.

“I designed the course partly to give students on the
all-course master’s route an opportunity to do some personal
reflection in the ‘culminating course’, or final course
at the end of their program,” Dr. Yeoman clarified.

“What you’re doing in schools relates very much to the
lives of your students,” added Mr. Hoben. “And yourself
as well. Her course did an excellent job of providing that space,
and she’s also got the knowledge of theory and writing that
draws on this. The focus is interdisciplinary, so whether
it’s narrative inquiry, pop culture, feminist theory, second
language learning or whatever, she’s done a great job of
drawing from different aspects of these to reflect.”
If people learn using different intelligences, it’s important
to have options in our education system. And whether students
choose to go a more traditional route with a scholarly course
thesis, or go for a project in writing, film, audio, art work or
any other creative outlet that takes a more personal approach,
should perhaps be up to them.